Explore different perspectives and approaches to design more truthful and enlightening data visualisation
The task is to criticize the original data visualization in below Figure 1., suggest the alternative presentation, design the the proposed data visualization using Tableau, describe the step-by-step preparation and interpret the observations revealed by the data visualization prepared.
The data source of above visualization is as below:
“origin_destination_bus_SZ_202201.csv”, this data set was downloaded from LTA Datamall and URA region, planning area and planning subzone information were added by using GIS Overlay operation.
“MP14_SUBZONE_WEB_PL”, this data provides URA Master Plan 2014 Planning Subzone boundary map in ESRI shape file format. It was downloaded from data.gov.sg.
(a) No dashboard title: The original design doesn’t have dashboard title. It is unclear which country the data is about, which period and what type of trips.
(b) Unclear Sub-chart title: “Adjacency Matrix” may be difficult for people who have no mathematics background to understand.
(c) Confusing Tooltips “Adjacency Matrix” tooltips show “% of Total Total Trips along Table (Across)”. This is confusing for people to understand what the data represents.
(d) Missing annotation There is no annotation about how to use this interactive dashboard.
(e) Abbreviation In the filters on the right of the dashboard, “Sz” is used to represent “Subzone”, which is not easy to understand.
(a) No color differentiation: Both “Trips generated from” and “Trips attracted to” use the same blue color. This doesn’t provide any support for readers to quickly understand the charts.
(b) Redundant legend : The 0% to 100.0% grey scale for “% of Total Total Trips” is redundant. It doesn’t provide any useful information.
(c) Hidden Header Labels “WEEKENDS/HOLIDAYS” Y Axis label is not fully viewable due to lack of space.
(d) Too many graphs: There are too many graphs displayed at the same time, regarding trips generated from origins, into destinations, over weekday, over weekend, weekday matrix and weekend matrix. Readers need to compare and analyze multiple graphs to draw conclusions.
(a) No link between origins and destinations: This dashboard is supposed to review the inter and intra-subzone flows. However, the original design doesn’t convey any information on what the destinations are for the selected origin and what origins are for the selected destination.
(b) No filter on the adjacency matrix : There is no filter on the adjacency matrix. All the origins and destinations are squeezed into a single chart. It failed to convey any useful information if not looking at the tooltips.
(c) Single Value List filter There are more than 300 subzones. List filter is not proper here due to the length and difficulty to use. Dropdown filter is more proper.
(d) No link between bar charts and adjacency matrix: When filter either origin or destination bar charts, there is no change to the adjacency matrix.
The initial sketch of proposed design is as follow: